The Stone Puritan
by Dan Sickles
Summary: A stone Puritan is nobody's friend! This story is where I rip on Nathaniel Hawthorne's slow, boring classic novel, HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES, by pretending it's really THE STONE KILLER, a Seventies dirty-cop movie starring Charles Bronson. Tons of humor and a few mild sexual references.


THE STONE PURITAN

 _This story is a combination of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic_ _The House of The Seven Gables_ _and the old Charles Bronson dirty-cop movie_ _The Stone Killer_ _. You can watch the trailer on YouTube for free and then decide if it's funny. Please comment nicely!_

FADE IN on black-clad Puritans in tall-crowned hats, wolf-packing down the street like power-mad 17th century Nazis. They BUST DOWN the front door of an old man's shack. As the cheap wood explodes they're seen ecstatically punching and kicking him like crooked racist Chicago cops. The old man rolls over spitting out blood.

MAULE: I'm not a witch! I'm a carpenter!

THE STONE PURITAN: Sell me your land OR ELSE!

HAWTHORNE: A stone Puritan is nobody's friend. He's a fanatic they bring in to hunt down the sinners. Sometimes he sets up innocent victims and _steals_ a little on the side.

MAULE: I'm not selling my land! You can't make me!

THE STONE PURITAN: He's a witch. HANG HIM!

HAWTHORNE: Colonel Pyncheon is good at his job. But his reputation stinks! They say he _enjoys_ it too much.

MAULE: (on the gallows) Don't hang me! If you do my well will turn nasty and you'll choke on your own blood!

PYNCHEON: (at a fancy party in his new mansion) GLOGG! GURGLE! CHOKE!

JAFFREY PYNCHEON: (Oily and sleazy) Well, cousin Hepzibah, it's been more than a hundred and fifty years since our ancestor choked mysteriously on his own blood. But I'm just as evil as he was, and I WANT THIS HOUSE!

HEPZIBAH PYNCHEON: (Old and whiny) Oh, why must you pester me, evil cousin Jaffrey? You've already driven my poor brother Clifford completely insane! Why must you be so evil?

JAFFREY PYNCHEON: (Proudly) Old Colonel Pyncheon may be gone, but I'm a Stone Puritan! Watch me put the moves on your sensational new shop girl!

HEPZIBAH PYNCHEON: (Whiny and weepy) Oh, you mustn't harm her. She's our pretty little cousin Phoebe!

CLIFFORD PYNCHEON: (Drooling and insane) Phoebe pretty! Phoebe good! Phoebe make story less depressing!

JAFFREY PYNCHEON: Cousin Clifford, how would you like a one way ticket to the insane asylum? I'm going to find the deed to those lost Indian lands the minute I drive all the rest of you out of this moldy old house. I'm going to succeed where seven generations of Pyncheon men have failed. Because I'm . . . a Stone . . . Puritan! Come here, Cousin Phoebe! It's time your innocent country-girl lips got a little workout!

COUSIN PHOEBE: Ewwww!

HOLGRAVE THE PHOTOGRAPHER: (Young and dashing) Don't worry, my love! I shall defeat the evil Stone Puritan with my mastery of the occult hypnotic arts. These are the same arts Matthew Maule's grandson used to punish haughty Alice Pyncheon for laughing at him!

JAFFREY PYNCHEON: (Sneering) This is the eighteen forties, young man. And this saccharine, melodramatic imitation Gothic is already moving at a snail's pace. We don't have time for a stone flashback!

HAWTHORNE: A stone flashback is nobody's friend! This is a stone flashback to the day when proud, haughty Alice Pyncheon was hypnotized by sulky, sexy young Matthew Maule.

MATTHEW MAULE: (Hypnotically intense and sexy) You are getting sleepy . . . sleepy . . . now you are in my power. Now you must obey all my commands!

ALICE PYNCHEON: (Snarky even under hypnosis) Must you hypnotize girls to make them like you, you rude carpenter? What are you going to do now, force me to be your own haughty little sex zombie?

MATTHEW MAULE: No, I'm going to humiliate you by forcing you to laugh in church and burst into song at inappropriate moments. Soon you will die of shame!

ALICE PYNCHEON: Just as long as I die a virgin, genius. God, what a chump!

JAFFREY PYNCHEON: God, what a stupid flashback! All right, Cousin Hepzibah. Give me the deed to the lost Indian lands or you, your moron brother, Miss Phoebe, and the teenage punk with the camera equipment are all going to jail!

HEPZIBAH PYNCHEON: But we're all just innocent victims!

JAFFREY PYNCHEON: That's right! But I can send you to jail anyway because I'm a judge! And I'm also . . .

CLIFFORD, HEPZIBAH, PHOEBE, AND HOLGRAVE: (All shouting at the same time) A STONE PURITAN!

JAFFREY PYNCHEON: That's me all right! I'm just like the old Colonel! Now give me the deed to the lost Indian lands or I'll . . . GLOGG! GURGLE! CHOKE!

HOLGRAVE: And so all of us are saved, as the evil Pyncheon chokes on his own blood. Again.

HAWTHORNE: Seriously, who saw that coming?

THE GHOST OF ALICE PYNCHEON: God, this story sucks. Would you believe I'm the most beautiful ghost in New England, and I've been haunting this house for almost a hundred years and I'm still a virgin? I think I'll fly up to heaven now, and have sex with every single soldier in George Washington's army!

PHOEBE PYNCHEON: Am I going to die a virgin too?

HOLGRAVE: Did I happen to mention my name is really Maule?

PHOEBE PYNCHEON: Who saw that coming?

CLIFFORD: Happy ending to trite melodrama! Slow plot and turgid writing make my weak, fragile heart sink like a stone!

HAWTHORNE: A stone melodrama is nobody's friend!


End file.
